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It seems was yesterday that we got the 2021 Release Wave 2, and we already have a new release. Microsoft investments in Business Applications to create a more powerful platform grow every year. We start 2022 with many new features that I’ll bring to you through some articles.
In this first article regarding the 2022 Release Wave 1, let’s talk about the new updates to Power Apps Model-Driven.
The new grid control is coming up
A great improvement is coming up. We had the same structure grid for a long time, and now Microsoft will introduce Infinite scrolling! You’ll see the records the same way as you have on your preferred social media. So, instead of users clicking on paging buttons, they just need to continue the scrolling to get more rows. I think with the new approach, the Makers will need to take care of the quantity of the columns on the grid. If you have many columns on the grid, probably the browser requires more memory to load records. Let’s see.
Also, on the new grid, the Makers may enable the Inline editing within views and subgrids, providing more productivity by making edits directly in the grid instead open the records and making the change. A great feature as well.
Model-driven app in-app notification
Announced for public preview in July 2021, the in-app notification feature is reaching general availability. Now you’re free to enhance the communication with the users. You may check out the link below on how you send a notification and how the user receives it.
New Activity dropdown
Currently, the activity dropdown shows all the activities created. With this new update, the activity dropdowns will deliver only activities included in the app metadata to the users. Any activity that isn’t on app metadata will be hidden, providing a better user experience.
The new Advanced find
It may be a big disruptive change whether you were getting used to using the advanced find feature. The advanced find kept the same structure for years, and now we’ll have a significant change in how we will use it. Basically, the access will be through the search bar with the new view management experience. The features such as managing views (creating, sharing, etc.) will be kept, but with a new look and feel.
Bad news for makers and developers! So far, I couldn’t see the button to download the FetchXml that’s useful when you need to build reports or make queries by Power Automate or by developments (plugins, custom workflows, batch process, etc.). I hope Microsoft doesn’t remove this feature forever.
Rich text on appointments
You’ll be able to add links, lists, format, and other rich text to the appointment description field. The same control that you already have to text emails, you’ll be on the appointment.
Create and join Teams meetings from in-app appointments
The users can create and join Microsoft Teams meetings from their model-driven app with a single click. It is exciting because you no longer need to make an appointment from Outlook or Microsoft Teams to have this feature. Once created by model-driven, you’ll have everything integrated.
Co-presence in records
Have you ever had the problem of lost data because you and your teammate were working on the same record at the same time? With this feature, you can see who’s currently working on a record. It allows you to reach out to your colleague by chat before you make any change on the record, enhancing collaboration and avoiding data loss.
Expanding the Facepile, you’ll see more details from your teammates.
The feature will be available for the Account, Case, Opportunity, and Contact tables.
Table hub and designer on make.powerapps.com
Currently available on Power Apps for Teams, the table designer will be introduced on make.powerapps.com to make creating and customizing tables more approachable for citizen developers. It’s a great new experience to customize tables. Objects such as columns and relations can be created in line with that table data and set the appropriate privileges.
As we can see, we’ll have more features to test on our customers. I encourage you to create a new organization and update it with this release, so you can validate if it will have any impact on your current implementation, mainly when we’re talking about the new advanced find looks and feel.
I hope you enjoyed it! Bye!
Maykon Alves 
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